trophymanagerfandomcom-20200214-history
Scottish Asian Lad's Team
'Club Information' Club Name: Scottish Asian Lad's Team (SALT) Nickname(s): The Jambos, Gareth Adam's Barmy Army, Impoverished Slaves Founded: 13/02/2013 Ground: New Tynecastle, Leeds Capacity: 11,500 Manager: Syed Rahman League: League 2, Group 18 (England) Season 33: Conference Premier, 2nd 'Club History' Foundation Season (Season 31) The club Scottish Asian Lad's Team originated from the visions of Syed Rahman, a guy born in Scotland of Asian descent. Having moved down from Scotland to England, he was keen to create a club on Trophy Manager which would be successful down south after missing the chance to do so up north. With the added pressure of peers he finally created a club which conveniently has the acronym SALT which particularly pleased Rahman as he was a fond lover of chips. Rahman had a starting budget of around 100 million TM coins to kickstart the project and he settled on creating the club stadium nearby Leeds with the name 'New Tynecastle', the regenerated version of the ground 'Tynecastle' in Edinburgh where Hearts play, as he was an avid fan of the Scottish club Heart Of Midlothian FC. After a starting squad was collected and formed, Trophy Manager approved the club's registration and SALT were entered into the league Conference National Group 742, the sixth tier of English trophy manager football, for Season 31 in a tiny league which only contained 8 teams in total. The team debuted against now null side Swindon AA which resulted in a very entertaining 1-1 draw including a controversial red card for a two-footed tackle on winger Archibald Johnson. After this point SALT would accumulate a grand total of 38 points out of a possible 42, a very impressive total. This meant that SALT topped the table and were crowned champions of the division, a remarkable achievement for a newly formed club. Much attention was drawn on the club forward Gareth Adam who struck the net an impressive 5 times in 4 games at one point, putting him into the spotlight for future matches. At the end of the season, club chairman and manager Rahman set about to maintain this level of success for the club by investing heavily in the stadium's resources with his now hefty bank account. A vast revamping of the stadium was in place with an expansion from the old seating capacity of 7,500 to 11,500 after SALT had gained a significant fan following after catching the eyes of locals during their campaign in Season 31. As well as this Rahman set about plans to develop players at the club by investing in the club's youth academy for potential future players to develop as well as improving the dire training facilities so current squad members could reach their full potential. Many other things were also established such as a brand-spanking sausage stand as well as a new merchandise store. The only downside of this excessive spending was that the club was beginning to look a little cash-strapped and this meant that a couple players had to leave the club so early into the club's formation. Centre/Left Back Daniel Forrester was placed in the transfer list and SALT's first transfer negotiations were completed when he was signed by Conference Premier side Newcasle for exactly 500,000. Some players were also fired due to undisclosed circumstances. The Conference Premier Seasons (Season 32-33) The success of Rahman's club in Season 31 earned SALT promotion to the fifth tier of Trophy Manager football, Conference Premier Group 186 for Season 32 where they would encounter completely new ground in terms of playing styles and the going would not be as easy as last season was. SALT went about the season as if it was more like a transitional season for them and this was evident as the team struggled to find consistency even though they got off to a very promising start to the season winning 4 of their first 5 games. To change this, Rahman decided to venture into depths new by investing in foreign players for the first time who were of better calibre to the squad members at the time. 3* players Rabah Hamdi and Polat Atay, both from Turkey and Petr Prerovsky of Russia were drafted into the first team squad and they made an immeasurable impact to the side during mid-season, although Atay struggled to make a decent number of clean sheets. Towards the end of the season SALT were riding high in 2nd place, much higher than they expected with promotion looming, however Rahman realised this relatively inexperienced side were not prepared to compete in the pastures of League 2 so took the controversial approach of fielding very weak players for the last 5 games where against Warwick C.D, were defeated 0-19, which remains to this date as SALT's heaviest defeat. This also meant they missed out on their sponsor goals by 2 goals, something which the board are still very bitter about as they had conceded 72 goals, the highest goals against tally SALT has ever had. Forward Gareth Adam however, was stealing the headlines for the right reasons and shrugged off any doubts of a second season syndrome by pulling his weight with an exceptional 26 goals in 30 games, and he was recognised for his efforts by gaining the Player-of-the-Year Award for that season. SALT ultimately avoided the playoffs in the league and settled for 5th place, an unbelievable feat for a newly promoted side. After such an exciting season full of controversy, Rahman wanted a fresh start for Season 33 in the same division, and did this by again freshing up the squad and offloading fringe players and inconsistent players to other clubs. Among these players was newly purchased Polat Atay who only managed to keep 3 clean sheets from a possible 25 and struggled for form so was sold for 11,900,000 coins, which resulted in a pleasing profit. Also saying goodbye were youth products Andrew Harris and Tony Watson as well as Rabah Hamdi who surprisingly was listed and went for a large fee of around 21,000,000. In their place came in many foreign players, namely Kettil Nicklasson from Sweden, a young winger who was purchased for a record 33,800,000 and to replace Atay came experienced Bangladeshi keeper Hardip Chatterjee, formerly a reserve goalie for the champions of division 1 in Bangladesh. A grand total of 88 million coins was spent during Season 33, which left SALT's bank balances a little dry and resulted in the downgrading of the seating capacity of New Tynecastle to drop to 10,000 so maintenance fees were easy to pay. This season was rated among fans and critics as SALT's most successful season having conceded the fewest number of goals in the entire league as well as having the highest goal tally ever achieved by SALT. Unlike last season, consistency wasn't a problem this time around as SALT managed to win 7 of their remaining 8 games towards the end of the season and enjoying 6 game winning streaks twice throughout the season. Gareth Adam had another season to remember after heaving in more than 20 goals again and assert his status as a club and cult hero as well as a match-winner a manager could rely on, accumulating the most Man of the Match awards in the league. Newly purchased Centre Midfielder Elliot Weaver also scored 12 times, impressive for a player who previously played in the bottom tier of Greek Football. SALT would end up with their highest ever points tally of 59 points, securing 2nd place and this time a place in the promotion playoffs, which they would eventually win to achieve promotion to the dizzy heights of League 2.